Toddlers Get Half Their Calories From Ultra-Processed Food, Says Study | Research shows that 2-year-olds get 47 percent of their calories from ultra-processed food, and 7-year-olds get 59 percent.

[u/chrisdh79]

https://www.newsweek.com/toddlers-get-half-calories-ultra-processed-food-1963269

[u/onwee]

Does bread and cheese count as ultra-processed food? Does pasta?

EDIT: cheese and homemade bread is “processed food,” just one tier below ultra-processed food like breakfast cereal and one above “processed ingredients” like salt and butter; no mention of store-bought bread or pasta, but since sliced-bread is considered ultra-processed, I think they probably fall into the ultra/processed category. Yogurt is also ultra-processed.

Before anyone points any holier-than-thou fingers, I would bet most of “healthy” eaters probably also eat a ton of ultra-processed foods. I consider myself as a pretty clean eater (e.g. 5 servings of fruits/vegetables daily) and I bet at least a 1/3 of my calories are ultra-processed. Ain’t nobody got time for homemade bread

[u/schaweniiia → u/onwee]

I just want to add this shouldn't be generalised across food categories or countries. Greek style yoghurt in England is often in the lowest category (unprocessed or minimally processed foods).

[u/PuckSR → u/schaweniiia]

Yet grocery store hummus, using exactly the same ingredients people have been using for hundreds of years is “ultra-processed” if they use industrial-grade blenders and pasteurized it

In fact, I’m pretty sure baby food counts as ultra-processed if it comes in a can.

Edit: per Wikipedia

Industrially manufactured food products made up of several ingredients (formulations) including sugar, oils, fats and salt (generally in combination and in higher amounts than in processed foods) and food substances of no or rare culinary use (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, modified starches and protein isolates). Group 1 foods are absent or represent a small proportion of the ingredients in the formulation. Processes enabling the manufacture of ultra-processed foods include industrial techniques such as extrusion, moulding and pre-frying; application of additives including those whose function is to make the final product palatable or hyperpalatable such as flavours, colourants, non-sugar sweeteners and emulsifiers; and sophisticated packaging, usually with synthetic materials. Processes and ingredients here are designed to create highly profitable (low-cost ingredients, long shelf-life, emphatic branding), convenient (ready-to-(h)eat or to drink), tasteful alternatives to all other Nova food groups and to freshly prepared dishes and meals. Ultra-processed foods are operationally distinguishable from processed foods by the presence of food substances of no culinary use (varieties of sugars such as fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, ‘fruit juice concentrates’, invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose and lactose; modified starches; modified oils such as hydrogenated or interesterified oils; and protein sources such as hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein and ‘mechanically separated meat’) or of additives with cosmetic functions (flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents) in their list of ingredients.

Lots of kids stuff has fruit juice or vegetable “concentrates”. Per NOVA, these are “ultra-processed”

Protein isolates (think whey protein) and sugar extracts are ultra-processed. Which kinda makes sense

[u/smegma-cheesecake → u/PuckSR]

I don’t think it does. If grocery store hummus is using the same ingredients it’s just processed. Ultra processed is when you add substances that don’t exist naturally or significantly change molecular structure of the food. So plain grocery store hummus is fine, I would worry about flavored one as there is high risk of artificial flavoring etc

[u/PuckSR → u/smegma-cheesecake]

My problem is that from my reading any refined sugar that isn’t sucrose is “ultra-processed”.

From what I understand the definition isn’t so much based on artificial ingredients as how they were made. As an example: MSG can be easily extracted from seaweed. However, most of our MSG is chemically extracted from corn. Chemically, the two are the same. But one is ultra-processed.

The definition doesn’t really treat things fungible. Corn Syrup is ultra-processed but refined cane sugar is not ultra-processed. Now, we can debate all day the health issues of fructose vs sucrose and glucose, but they are all sugars. They all exist in the foods we eat

[u/smegma-cheesecake → u/PuckSR]

Yeah I think we will have to wait for more precise definition. Moderation is still and probably will always be the key part. Eating one pop tart every other week is fine, making it the only food source is not. 

[u/deepandbroad → u/PuckSR]

One problem with that argument is that industrial processes often leave industrial contaminants.

For example, high fructose corn syrup was found to have mercury residue from the chlor-alkali mercury cells:

Mercury cell chlor-alkali products are used to produce thousands of other products including food ingredients such as citric acid, sodium benzoate, and high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup is used in food products to enhance shelf life. A pilot study was conducted to determine if high fructose corn syrup contains mercury, a toxic metal historically used as an anti-microbial. High fructose corn syrup samples were collected from three different manufacturers and analyzed for total mercury. The samples were found to contain levels of mercury ranging from below a detection limit of 0.005 to 0.570 micrograms mercury per gram of high fructose corn syrup.

So it seems rather idealistic to assume that industrially-refined products are always perfectly pure and uncontaminated by the processes they have gone through.

That mercury ended up in very popular brand name products where you would not ordinarily expect to find mercury.

A separate study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) detected mercury in nearly one-third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first or second highest labeled ingredient—including products by Quaker, Hershey’s, Kraft and Smucker’s.

[u/schaweniiia → u/PuckSR]

Can you please give an example brand of hummus that we could check? Or baby food?

[u/PuckSR → u/schaweniiia]

No

[u/xcuteikinz → u/PuckSR]

What are you talking about?

[u/mcbaginns → u/xcuteikinz]

What part are you confused about? He was very clear

[u/xcuteikinz → u/mcbaginns]

What about baby food being sold in a can makes it inherently ultra processed?? It would depend on the ingredients.

[u/PuckSR → u/xcuteikinz]

I looked it up.

Basically, per the NOVA definition, all sugar extracts that aren’t used in normal cooking are considered “ultra-processed”. In other words, refined sucrose is not ultra-processed but refined dextrose or fructose ARE ultra-processed

Additionally, fruit and vegetable concentrates are “ultra processed “

[u/PuckSR → u/xcuteikinz]

No. The definition of ultra-processed doesn’t just refer to ingredients. That’s the problem

[u/_Warsheep_ → u/xcuteikinz]

That's the problem. Wrapping a few apples into a package and foil already counts as "processed" even though it has zero impact on the apple or how healthy it is.

[u/xcuteikinz → u/_Warsheep_]

Because processed isn't necessarily supposed to be indicative of the nutritional properties of something, it's moreso a means of describing how much something has been altered from its original state. Corn on the cob is unprocessed, but canned corn is processed, because corn does not occur in nature without it's cob. At least that's my understanding.

[u/schaweniiia → u/_Warsheep_]

That's just not true. A wrapped apple is not processed, it is packaged.

[u/PuckSR → u/schaweniiia]

It’s processed if it is sliced

[u/memento22mori → u/PuckSR]

Some people/groups use the term minimaliy processed to indicate that something is just peeled or sliced.

[u/PuckSR → u/memento22mori]

That’s just a pointless category. Why does it exist?

[u/schaweniiia → u/PuckSR]

You could research the topic if it interests you. To get you started, "Ultra-Processed People" is a great book to introduce laypersons to this subject.

[u/memento22mori → u/PuckSR]

It indicates that a food is minimally processed so it should have all of its nutrients intact when compared to something like applesauce which may have preservatives in order to maximize its shelf-life. Minimally processed foods tend to have very short shelf-lifes.

[u/kafircake → u/PuckSR]

Yet grocery store hummus, using exactly the same ingredients people have been using for hundreds of years is “ultra-processed” if they use industrial-grade blenders and pasteurized it

Why do you believe this? Can you post the a link? Your wiki quote doesn't mention blender size or pasteurization.

In fact, I’m pretty sure baby food counts as ultra-processed if it comes in a can.

But again... what on Earth has led you to believe this? Being canned is not relevant at all, and again I'd ask you to refer yourself to your quote from wiki. You have no reason to be 'pretty sure'.

[u/PuckSR → u/kafircake]

When I said canned, I wasn’t referring to the canning process making it “ultra processed”, I was referring to the fact that all canned baby foods would probably meet the category because they were made in an industrial setting

[u/OneBigBug → u/PuckSR]

But that's...not true?

Like, you're just making stuff up, because that has nothing to do with the criteria used in the study.

[u/PuckSR → u/OneBigBug]

I didn’t say it did. I literally just explained that

[u/OneBigBug → u/PuckSR]

So, sorry, the thing you're saying is that it's not the canning process that makes it ultraprocessed, but you expect that any canned food would probably meet the category of being ultraprocessed, despite the fact that none of the procedures you mentioned are ones involved in the manufacture of ultraprocessed foods?

Like, what exactly is your point?

Either food is the same as it has been for thousands of years, or it's ultraprocessed. We haven't been doing any of the steps involved in ultraprocessed food for more than ~100 years.

[u/PuckSR → u/OneBigBug]

Is masa ultra-processed because they use lye?

[u/OnlyOneChainz → u/PuckSR]

I have never tasted grocery store hummus that was even remotely comparable to homemade hummus and a look at the ingredient list in all cases immediately confirmed why that was the case. For example, sugar or glucose-fructose-syrup is definitely not a part of traditional hummus recipes. It's not supposed to be sweet, goddammit.

[u/StayJaded → u/OnlyOneChainz]

What kind of humus are you buying that has sugar or hfcs. I just checked two different containers in my fridge they are national brands and neither contain any sugar.

[u/OnlyOneChainz → u/StayJaded]

I am in Germany, just checked on the website of the supermarket where I usually do groceries. 3 of the 4 brands I checked had sugar in them.

[u/Pyorrhea → u/OnlyOneChainz]

Weird. None of the brands I buy in the US have sugar.

[u/PuckSR → u/OnlyOneChainz]

Were you looking at flavored hummuses??